Which made it all the more curious that Tak should once again sneak into her thoughts. That she should wonder what it might be like to visit a place like this as a couple. With him.
It didn’t matter how much she pushed that night into a box and tried to turn the key on it, reminders always found their way out. Into her head and her chest, until she ached for him all over again.
Stalking away, as if she could somehow outpace it, Effie’s eyes alighted on a caricaturist impressively capturing the fun, carefree young girl who was willingly posing for him. Her friends were jostling to be next as they gasped and admired the image.
It was a symbol of all the things Effie had never, ever been able to be, let alone when she was their age. She’d spent her entire life just trying to stay safe and under the radar. Watching other people have fun but never being able to enjoy it for herself.
She even held herself back with Tak—with the exception of the other night—and suddenly Effie couldn’t help but wonder what she thought she was achieving by it. Was she protecting herself, as her head would argue, or was she in fact depriving herself of even a few snatched moments of something good for herself?
These few days in Paris with Tak were her time. And if she didn’t seize the moment then who knew when it would present itself again?
* * *
‘You look breathtaking,’ Tak murmured as she met him that evening in the hotel bar, as per her own instructions.
She inclined her head to one side and just about kept her smile of delight from taking over her entire face. ‘Thank you.’
She should hope so. An afternoon at a spa, and swimming, and even an indulgent visit to the hotel’s hair salon had taken every bit of spare money she’d had. But it had been worth it to pamper herself for once. To feel as though she was being spoiled.
Carefully she took Tak’s proffered arm and walked with him into the dining room, where the maître d’ accompanied them to their table with economical gestures and an expansive smile and the sommelier fluttered around them as they made their wine selections.
The meal passed by pleasantly enough. Tak asked about her day, and in between her tantalising starter and succulent main course she told him about Abbesses, the Bateau-Lavoir, the Sacré-Coeur. She kept to herself the lingerie boutique she’d visited on her way back from Montmartre. And after the cheese course was done and her dessert had arrived she enjoyed surprising him by telling him that she had eventually plucked up the courage to sit for a caricature.
Tak looked impressed. ‘You’ll have to let me see it.’
‘Only if you promise not to laugh,’ she warned him.
‘Isn’t that the point of a caricature? To amuse?’
‘Yes,’ she conceded, savouring her crème brûlée. ‘But pleasantly.’
‘Then I assure you I shall not laugh.’ He managed to look solemn. ‘And what about tomorrow?’
‘Tomorrow I’m taking the Métro, and I’m going to visit the Eiffel Tower and walk along the Seine.’
‘You could always come and join our team for a day. You could provide a different perspective for one of our talks—the first-on-the-scene account.’
‘No, thanks!’ Effie laughed. ‘I’m here to play, not to work.’
‘You haven’t really ever had time to play, have you?’ asked Tak, without warning. ‘Time to yourself.’
‘Have you?’ she threw back softly. ‘I mean, really? You have your games suite, and you see your brothers and sisters, but isn’t it all really still your way of taking care of your siblings? You didn’t buy that house for yourself, did you? You bought it for your sisters and your brother to live in with you until they had their own families. And you always meet up with Rafi because you want to check on him—although I’m not sure why.’
Something shimmered in the air between them. All around them was the hum of chatter, the clinking of glass and the scrape of cutlery against china.
It felt like an eternity, but then at last Tak answered her. ‘You really want to know?’
‘I do.’
He took a long drink of wine, quite unlike his usual carefulness. Effie stayed still. Patient.
‘I told you about Saaj, and how I had to hold things together for my other siblings whilst my mother was with him,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t tell you that he was a deliberate mistake. That my mother had him late in life as a way of trying to win my father back.’
‘I don’t understand...’
‘My parents had an arranged marriage. She was a good match for my father and she was determined to be a good wife. But my father was handsome, a doctor, and to some a meal ticket. He had women throwing themselves at him and he was weak and greedy and he wanted it all. A very proper wife back home, having his children and raising his family, and a naughty young mistress who would do all the dirty things with him he felt a wife should not do.’
Every word cut into her. Tak’s mother might have suffered a different fate from herself, but ultimately it was still rejection, betrayal. She couldn’t imagine what Tak’s mother must have gone through.